The present invention relates to a closure for a container, having a support device for the fillers.
Containers of the type under consideration here include in particular cylindrical containers made of plastic or glass, used for example as tubes for tablets. Therefore, the present invention will be explained in relation to the example of containers of this sort. However, the description should not for this reason be understood as limiting; rather, the present invention can also be used for any other containers, e.g. those having non-cylindrical cross-sections.
Such closures have long been known in the prior art, and are widely used for example for closing containers of vitamin tablets or food supplement tablets, as well as pharmaceutical products, whose fragility requires that there be support devices in the container or at the closure in order to ensure delivery of an undamaged product to the consumer. Such support devices according to the prior art generally use elastic elements that, in the delivered state of the closed container, are clamped between the closing cap and the contents and that exert a force on the fillers in the manner of a spring, damping externally caused agitation of the fillers and thus preventing damage to it.
DE 199 36 808 C2 discloses such an elastic element in the form of a bellows that provides segments between the closing cap and the fillers that expand radially and are pushed together axially when the elastic element is deformed, creating an elastic tension.
Such a bellows-type hold-down device is also described in DE-GM 79 29 377 U1. The disadvantages of such a construction include comparatively high material and manufacturing costs. Another disadvantageous property of the bellows construction is that it takes up a relatively large volume inside the container, solely for the purpose of its supporting function. The occupation of such a large volume results in a comparatively high material requirement, and thus in higher costs. In addition, the container volume occupied by the elastic element results in less space for additional devices, such as for example a desiccating capsule for placing desiccating agents in the container.
Another construction of a support device that is widely used, e.g. in stopper closures for vitamin and food supplement tablet tubes, and that is proposed for example in DE-GM 83 37 183.4 U1, as well as in DE 196 33 495 A1, provides a holding down of the fillers in the container via elastically deformable spiral arms. Anchored on the inside of the closing cap, a number of spiral arms, uniformly distributed, wind down to a particular support depth, where usually an annular hold-down device is fastened. The advantage of such a construction is that the interior volume is available for additional functions, such as e.g. a desiccating capsule for introducing a desiccating agent into the container. A further disadvantage is the high material outlay connected with the use of a plurality of spiral arms and an annular hold-down device, resulting in comparatively high material costs.